Saturday,May 1st, 2021

  Warm Water, Long Distance

Jodi and I started off the month of May with a long warm(ish) swim. At 8 Avila Beach had high thin clouds so there were shadows but it wasn't warm. It was calm with an air temperature of 52° and a water temperature of 55°! I checked it twice to be sure. The last time I measured a water temperature above 52° was a 55° reading on November 11, 2020, almost five months ago.

The focus is poor but the red line is on the long mark at 55

Having begun swimming at Avila this year Jodi had never been in 55° water so she thought a long swim would be a good idea. Thinking that I'd like to do about 4K I suggested that we go down the swim buoys to the east end and back along the whole line to the mouth of the creek, over to the second crossbars on the CP Pier and out to the end of the pier.  From there we would decide how to complete our swim. I was thinking some kind of route back to the Avila Pier and in.

It had been smooth swimming until it started to get bumpy as we came out along the length of the CP Pier. At the end of the pier there was a good chop and push out of the SW.

At the end of the CP Pier Jodi suggested that we swim to Fossil Point. That would be a leg of 14 or 1500M but we would have a push from the swell so I said fine.    

Jodi and Niel at the end of the CP Pier.

At Fossil Point I vetoed the idea of going back to the end of the Avila Pier as I was starting to feel a bit done and going back to the pier that way would be too much work swimming against the chop. We came in to the buoy line and to the pier. I had us at 4600M and didn't want to get out just short of 5K so we swam out to the end of the pier and back to the beach.  

Two hours in the water and 5,316M. Neither of us were cold. 

What a difference those few degrees made.

We'll swim tomorrow at 7:30.

niel